Chaos systems AB presents a new and open source database connection, which connect to a large number of databases. It uses the open source FDO from Open Source GEO, which has been adapted to Topocad. Many customers have expressed a demanded of a freestanding database. On account of this, Topocad has three different solutions of database connections, where this FDO connection can collect and store data from a large number of different databases. FDO database connection becomes a separate module to Topocad, and makes it possible to access data from several different geospatial data sources in the state of geospatial databases and file formats. FDO uses a model based on database connections, where each connection supports a certain format or data source.

Following database connections are used:

• MySQL
• PostGIS
• Oracle (Oracle 10g, express, and 9i)
• MS SQL Server Spatial
• ESRI ArcSDE
• SDF (Autodesk’s geospatial file format)
• ESRI SHP
• ODBC
• WFS
• WMS
• GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library) (Raster)
• OGR (Vector format: shp, gml, dgn, kml, mapinfo etc.)
• SQLite

“FDO means an increased accessibility to different databases, many of them free and Open Source, and it offers our customers a very cost-efficient and simple solution for collecting, update and store data in different formats” says Tomas Sandström, partner and sales manager of Chaos systems AB.

“Topocad aims to be a program easy to handle, and we have focused on creating simple functions for mapping in different databases, and where we simply states how the different types of object should be displayed in the maps. All this with a user-friendly administration tool for the maps” continues Tomas Sandström.

About Feature Data Object (FDO)
Three years ago, Autodesk released the FDO-technology, a platform for mapping by open source that gives opportunities to coordinate different types of data. FDO is available within Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and makes it possible for programmers all around the world to contribute to a new mapping technology.

 Read more at http://www.chaos.se/eng/index.htm